Why the Supremacy is fundamentally different as a Dreadnought | Star Wars Lore 

Ah, those good engineers of the First Order. They are honoring the last order of the late Admiral Piett. They fully intensified forward firepower.

The Last Jedi novelisation actually said Supremacy is not just a ship. It's a flying capital of the First Order. It has it's own production lines, shipyards, army training grounds, R&D labs. It's apparently capable of housing and fixing Resurgent-class Star Destroyers if not even building those. It's supposed to be independent from all planets with stocks of food and fuel andcapable of producing everything they need. It's crew is a mix of pretty much everything. Scientists, cadets, officers, technicians, production workers and a shit ton of droids. It's basically a small planet in winged shape. I don't think Supremacy is supposed to be first line of deffence or assault. It's a capital. It's build to be able to protect itself form up front and jump if needed and I doubt it's ever left without at least some Star Destroyers and shitton of hangars full of TIE fighter. You don't leave Capital to defend itself, right?

I am not a space ship expert but I am a fairly well informed naval enthusiast. The ship is designed for a specific doctrine and approach to battle that is reflected in its name. With its main battery mounted forward, it allowed the ship to excel in offensive action and pursuits. Two things that the first order are often time involved in. It’s hull design and main battery placement force opponents to either turn broadside on to “match” firepower thus committing themselves to a protracted engagement or flee much like in the movie effectively masking their own main armament while still being focused down by the supremacy’s primary weapons. These two outcomes suit the purposes of the first order as they seek to pin down the smaller forces of the rebellion to destroy them or at the least pursue them and capture more territory.

This is actually a pretty good question to bring up. The Supremacy looks so much different then say, an Executor. But it’s a really unique and cool design

It should have been called the Supremacy-class not Mega-class.

The Supremacy isn't a dreadnought as much as it's a hyperspace capable starbase.

It's more of a mothership than a dreadnought.

The Supremacy is a Wide Boy, whereas previous dreadnoughts were Long Boys.

Grand Admiral Thrawn: *Notices the Mandator IV has no defenses on the bottom, and yet sees the Resistance had their bombers fly over the top of it where all of its defenses were* "When you launched this battle plan were you aware space ships can fly in 3 dimensions?" Resistance Leadership: "No we were not."

The whole thing is, in general, different from any other Dreadnought we have seen so far. While Dreadnought typically carry fighters and other small craft, this one can not just dock, but also dock, resupply, maintain and even MANUFACTURE capital ships. As such, it is more of a mobile base/shipyard, i wouldn´t be surprised if it houses extensive harvesting and ore refining equipment.

It’s more like a floating city honestly

Meh. Supremacy existed as it did because they needed a set piece and something to one-up the reveal of the executor (given that TLJ was more or less a remix of ESB). It was there to be the big looming danger in the background (without ever doing anything) and to give something for Holdo to crash herself into and be a big hero (even though her entire time as leader was wasted). The Supremacy was an interesting change in star destroyer design, but the concepts it embodied were never embraced. Hell, you could argue that Resurgents have been more or less wasted too. Just another one-up on the original series that exists for nothing else.

I’d say the Supremacy is less of a warship than a mobile fortress, not really intended for front line combat.

The biggest advantage of this style of ship, to the point where I even said I would mimic its basic shape in the comments of the video where you asked how we would design our flagships, is that it can essentially operate as a massive “turret” in space. It merely has to rotate itself to bring its massive firepower to bear on any given area.

It's basically just the classic imperial line of thinking, but I like to think that Tarkin himself commissioned the creation of this ship, which the empire never got around to, then the First Order got their hands on the design and actually made it. Tarkin was all about unwieldy intimidating blunt weapons with glaring weaknesses, in this case a lack of rear defenses. Makes me think of Tarkin's in-game description in Empire at War: "Does not consider retreat a viable option." The Supremacy can never turn its "back". I know you'll get to this in the finale of the Vong sub-series. Won't stop me from going through the motions though. Anyways: Can you breakdown what is by far the largest space battle in the entire franchise? *The* *Battle* *of* *Yuuzhan'tar!* I have made this request: Forty-five times.

I honestly think with added guns being allowed to rotate and being placed in what is the blind spot, this would be the best capital ship in Star Wars canon and legends.

I love this ship it was sad to see it go R I P supremacy

Honestly this thing wold make a great foundation to build a fleet around. But if you don't have a large fleet to support it, it's a economic crisis waiting to happen.

I think you kinda underestimate the ship honestly. While the amount of blind spots is frankly surprising, i think the idea of the ship is to control the battle-'front'. That is, with a ship like this, dictate where the battle will be fought and how your enemy can maneuverer. I like to think of it like an encroaching tide, you cant approach it from close range, its covered by support cruisers and a starfighter fleet. You can't run out of range of the cruisers, as the long range turbolasers of the dreadnought can and will catch you. And you can't outlast the thing, as its certainly got more armour, and can more economically use shields. (This all assumes conventional strategies, which does not include how the Supremacy was actually defeated. If we open that can of worms we'll be here all day.) I think its exceptionally weak, however, to certain guerrilla style, knockout blows on those huge thrusters by enemy starfighters. Jump behind it when you know where it is, cripple the engines, call in the fleet when it cant maneuverer. Thats how i would take it down. Someone like Poe would be up for that, i think. Of course i may be completely wrong, but thats the point of debate right?

Space combat ships will be mostly round and modular. The ship - oblong - shape is an anachronistic concept derived from earth's navies. Round shapes would allow for better camouflage in space, better placement of fire power and minimization of targetable surfaces as engagement happens in a 360o multiplane scenario. There is no aero advantage on a 100 meters frontal low profile ship while creating a 10 square km target as the ship is approach from the top or the bottom. If space combat ship were really designed similarly to sea ships then the tactical advantage would always lay in favor of who is perpendicularly above or below the other ship - a manouver (maybe) never explored in films. No reasonable captain would engage broadside when stealth and agility could grant a better orthogonal line of fire. The modular aspect would prevent a major blow to a single part of the ship result in catastrophic debacle of remaining operational systems. Plus, if ships were this big, carry hundred of thousands troops and cost what it seems, they will never see each other. Combat will happens by "over the horizon" shots or precision torpedoes/missiles.

the supremacy is your standard big long range artillery ship, meant to stay protected at the back of the fleet, use its size, heavy armor and/or shields to soak up incoming fire and use its big long range heavy guns to shoot medium to large ships at standoff ranges wile a properly designed set of support ships keep it from getting flanked and deal with smaller ships you need the right kind of fleet composition to make those ships work but they work really well when you can dictate the terms of battle and the wing design lends its self really well to that kind of role.

Best transforming fighter: VF-11 thunderbolt from Macross Plus vs the Union Flag from Gundam 00 vs the Viking from StarCraft vs the Mecha Tengu from Command and Conquer vs the Legioss from Genesis Climber Mospeda.

I hope the first order doesnt abandon the Supremacy, but instead repairs some of the damage and adds some thrusters on the remaining wing to even out the center of thrust. Half of a 60km ship is still a huge ship and it was still online after it got hit.

why do they not have tractor beam anymore ? or shields ?

The fundamental difference in scale between Star Wars and other sci fi's. Halo is all in the Orion arm, Star Trek is in the Alpha quadrant most of the time, etc.

It’s like a Ancient Greek Phalanx. Amazing at head-on combat, but if flanked it is slow and hard to reposition.

Viscount class star defender vs 2 of the MALEVOLENCE ( Subjagator class Heavy cruiser 4th Try

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I have to re-check the book's cross-sections, but I don't think the Supremacy is truly defenseless in the back. Yes, it's main *offensive* weapons seem to be all pointed forwards (the massive tower-guns), but who says it doesn't have thousands of smaller, defensive batteries in it's aft section? SW does indeed not show the distinction often, but there is a difference between offensive and defensive weaponry. Common SDs just use something in-between for double duty, but the Supremacy is probably big enough that it can have both. Does this make sense?

Just subscribed. Love the Star Wars military analysis vids the best! Plus honestly I looked up the intro/outro music, found a 10 hour version. Keep up the "stellar" work! 😉👍👍👍

What would be a better or perfect design for a ship that large? To me it kind of acts like a mothership and I think a circular design would be better as that way you can place weapons all around the ship to remove any weak spots.

I just had a thought in regards to that scene near the end where you included the hyperspace ram and all the controversy behind it. Perhaps the ship has to actually go to "light speed" in order to get into "hyperspace"? that would solve the conundrum of the raddus actually moving to the supremacy as oppose to it going straight into the hyperspace dimension.

2 Harrower Dreadnaughts vs 1 Imperial Star Destroyer

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I think the Supremacy is a good design if you had to make a ship of that size. It clearly requires an insanely large engine block to move around (though, I guess the Death Star didn't have visible engines... how DID it move around?), so the back is going to be vulnerable regardless of what they do. It's clearly a ship meant to be on the offense and to intimidate, and it does both of those reasonably well. If you imagine it attacking a planet with a good defense fleet (say, Mon Calamari) then you can see what it would do - jump out of hyperspace at a distance, fire on everything it can with its long-range guns, slowly advance and force enemy fleets to either run or be destroyed, while stationary emplacements are whittled down from a distance. Given its status as a literal capital ship, it has some justification for its size as well (since it's a base as much as it is a weapon). With a fleet of RSDs covering its biggest weak spot, it's hard to imagine how to take it down with conventional firepower below the superlaser category. Given its size, power, relative practicality and lack of easy-to-destroy weak spots, I would argue that the Supremacy is the most practical superweapon in Star Wars. (Okay, there's the Sun Crusher, but that doesn't count.)

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Well... now it's only two 30 km long boomerangs, ya know?

love this style of video, keep it up man! The channel just keeps getting better!

Great work on your videos

I dont get why in TLJ the First Order didn't just send 2-3 Resurgence Battlecruisers ahead to deal with the Resistance fleet, and left the rest in a defensive formation around the MSD to protect against any surprise flanking moves by the Resistance fleet towards the MSD.

If only the Supremacy used not only hundreds if not thousands of turbolasers to wear out its shield or even better send its thousands of tie fighters to destroy the resistance fleet, we saw what three could do lol.

I want a rundown on how The Fleet of Retribution with the Forward Unto Dawn defeated the Prophet of Truth and the last bastion of the unified covenant. Oh fucking yeah. “Battle of Installation of 00: How the Sangheili saved humanity and the galaxy” “Shipmaster, brute ships, staggered line! they outnumber us- three to one!” “Then it is an even fight. All cruisers, fire at will. Burn their mongrel hides!”

Fundamentally? It just looks like someone took the top and bottom of the Executor and squished the ship together.

It does something different from most capital ships. It’s also somewhat improved from the Empire fleet doctrine because the FO don’t leave it unprotected. I imagine it has fairly extensive point-defense over its hull, but as the Death Star and the _Fulminatrix_ show, point-defense isn’t foolproof. Unlike an ISD, if one was to attack the _Supremacy’s_ ventral side, the escort ships would tear them to pieces.

One of my favorite ships At least it went out in the most beautiful way possible

Because the film makers wanted a ship that would fill the entire camera shot and look impressive. Nevermind that it apparently can be taken out by a single ship going into hyperspace

Spartan II vs Space Marine Scout

2:07 They could tilt the ISD slightly down so all their heavy weapons can fire on a target.

Why do no star destroyers have turrents on the back?

You should make a video about the greater problems of Star Wars ship design, as in, how the design hinders the overall effectiveness of the ship. Keep up the great work

[202nd ask] Krogan vs Brutes [Mass Effect vs Halo]

One of the most important thing I love about the Supremacy is that those large Turbolasers (2:33) are exactly what's in my mind when I think of MACRO-CANNONS from Warhammer 40,000. Pure awesomeness. Speaking of Maco-cannons, when I looked at the cross-section page for the ship, those things are really tiny and hard to see, meaning that any sort of "Small" Turbolaser or some other point-defence weapon would be utterly unnoticeable; it's the same analysis problem one finds when trying to find the, quote "60 Turbolasers" on the Imperial-class Star Destroyer. I personally just use my reasoning and imagination to figure out what weapons CAN be where.

The supremacy suffered massive damage! Admiral Holdo sawed that boat in half!

If you're going to get into ship design like this I want to see a talk about the Hapans. Particularly the Battle Dragons. They always fascinated me and I was always happy to hear them described. But everything down to their Hornet fighters was interesting in that while the same they managed to apply their tech so differently.

Replicators vs a Unified Star Wars universe (273rd try now, *_I._** WILL NEEEEVER EEEVER GIVE UP!!!)*

I'll say this even though episode 8 was extremely disappointing the ship ideas were really interesting it makes sense to have a large ship with forward facing guns it means you can hit your target with more force and you can concentrate fire on a single target versus trying to get them into a broadside firing range because when you try to get to a broadside firing range You are very limit to where you can fire and where you can hit your target so overall it is a very impressive build

Doomsday from the comics vs the Flood

I feel like this is because it works more like a flagship/mobile base, like how the wings (or atleast one of them) are dedicated to R&D, so they're more isolated and don't have many weapons in case something goes wrong

Can the UNSC and the Covenant survive and beat the Angel Zeruel from Evangelion on Earth when the Covenant first attacked? Zeruel appears out of nowhere in this and is laying waste to everything and everyone that it sees and gets in it's way while trying to look for Lilith on this version of Earth to start the next Impact

Something I noticed, going back to Legends, is how the Hammerhead class cruisers of the Old Republic era were much the same in terms of weapon placement. All of a Hammerhead's heavy armament is mounted on the forward; two dual turbolaser turrets flanking the bridge, one dual turbolaser emplacement on the bottom of the hammerhead, and one single turbolaser on the top. While the top and bottom batteries can presumably swivel to fire to either side, and the turrets can elevate their barrels to fire on their own flank, the only place where the ship can bring all its heavy guns to bear is the bow. Its only broadside weapons are point defence mounts, and an unknown number of quad-laser turrets towards the stern. So this makes me think, was the design a cruiser of peacetime? Rather than being meant to fight in large scale fleet engagements, was it intended to focus more on stern chases, running down pirates and smugglers and the like? The design is pretty underarmed for a mainstay cruiser, as far as I can tell.

I want to point out that the Supremacy’s shield can only penetrated by a hyper moving objects.

Great vid Eckharts as always. Could you explain why the turbo lasers in TLJ had an arc as if they were being fired like projectiles under the influence of gravity (I think all turbo lasers we've seen have until now fired in straight lines)? And how did Kylo just fly through the Raddus's advanced shields?

Actually I think you've made a mistake about the traditional dagger shaped star destroyer's lines of fire, it's sloped shape should allow almost all of it's weapons to fire directly forward of the ship (the exceptions being any aft facing turrets) without anything blocking their line of sight. With the executor the problem is that the ship is way too elongated relative to its width and height with too many of its weapons are located in the trench amidships or in the dorsal cityscape with turrets in front blocking those behind them so there is no way to actually be bring many weapons to bear no matter the angle of approach (there's either other turrets in the way or the hull in the way meaning that to bring as much of the ship's firepower to bear as possible they'd need to present their broadsides to the enemy however it wouldn't look like the picture of the Battle of Orinda because the the two executors should have rolled along their spinal axis to present each other's dorsal sides to present more weapons with lines of fire to the enemy considering that the bulk of their turbolasers are on the dorsal side of the ship with mainly point defence laser cannons in the trenches. That would be an actual broadside battle presenting the largest face with the most firepower to the enemy as possible (they're in space after all there's no reason to orientate themselves with the planetary surface). As for the Supremacy, just in the last couple of days it's occurred tome that the ship should be almost impossible to maneuver at any reasonable speed without breaking it in half. As soon as you try to change course left or right it should place an immense torque on the ships's structure not once but twice (up and down adjustments should be fine), take for example a 90 degree left turn, to do that the ship needs to boost the engines on the right the right hand side of the ship forward faster than the left with the left wing acting as a huge lever for this force (torque equals force multiplied by the distance of the lever) and then as they reach 45 degrees of the turn and have built up a significant angular momentum (and if left aloe the ship will just keep spinning and spinning like a boomerang) they need to engage the engines on the left to counter act that angular momentum by the time they reach the desired 90 degrees (repeating the earlier strain but just on the other side of the ship but both strains meeting in the middle). Sure there's at least a couple of ways around the problem with this but one requires forward facing engines to help with the turn but the ship doesn't seem to have forward facing engines and other is to just to have short uses of the engine and letting momentum carry the ship around as needed before counter acting it but that slows down how fast the ship can turn greatly. If the Supremacy was attacked by an opponent from any direction other than directly in front of it it would be in serious trouble.

Grand Admiral Thrawn: *Notices The Supremacy has no rear defenses* When you designed this ship were you aware space ships could move in 3 dimensions? First Order Engineering team: No we were not.

Forerunner Promethean Warrior Servant vs Space Marine

Star Destroyers' v shaped hull is an excellent design for planetary blockades and bombardment. They go point first at the planet and arrange themselves to cover each other with crossing arcs of fire. It would also make it easier for the ships to provide crossing arcs of for each other when head on with an enemy. Then switching to broadsides as they pass.

Autumn class cruiser vs ISD

Supremacy has the coolest name and second coolest design imo

Krytonian Covenant Dune and Star Wars technology compared

I thought the whole point of the wedge shape was to allow all batteries to fire forwards at once? Ones further behind on the ship are places HIGHER, so they still have a free arc of fire; a star destroyer should be strongest when firing forward.

Resurgent vs alliegece- how do they stack up? whats similar and whats diffrent as they served in a similar role and is a similar size

Those arching laser bolts in zero-G space made me WTF out loud in the theater. The hell were they thinking besides "This'll look cool"?

Isn’t the alliance super star destroyer destroyed?

The interesting part was how it doubled as a moving factory. That made it more dangerous than Starkiller Base IMHO. With the capacity of churning out more Star Destroyers continously it made the First Order an unending threat.

Apples

Suggestion: this is my second attempt. Do a what-if scenario of your Patreon fleet the EckhartsLadder Navy thrown into a Star Wars era or alternate universe like Warhammer 40,000 or HALO. How would they survive? What would change in the universe that they land in? Love every single one of your videos!

Worst. Star wars. Ship. Ever! Executor, Eclipse or Asserter could easily take it out because they are more maneuverable and aren't limited to forward fire only

One tactic I never see discussed for star destroyers is tilt the front of the ship down ( down being relative to the positioning of the ship on its axis) but if for the Imperial 2 class if it were to angle its hull down it would be able to bring all 8 octuplet batteries to beat as well as the numerous other secondary batteries on board. As evidence I cite the clone wars season 1 in the episode droid lost when grievous states that if they attack from above the republic would have the advantage as the 8 main turbolasers for the venator are on the dorsal side of the ship

MSD is fundamentally difrent as a Drednought in that it doesn't work at all.

That shot of Holdo and the hyperspace impact always makes me mad; that is not how hyperspace works, the ship itself completely phases out of realspace into a separate dimension which allows faster than light travel. And even if the MC-85 had sublight engines powerful enough to do that, you'd be more likely to see robot ramships being used than a shoddy, underarmed and armored Mon-Cal cruiser.

Because it comes from the crappy Disney timeline its a fundamentally worse ship. there jobs done!

I like the steeper wedges of traditional imperial ships better, because with smart weapon placement you can still bear a lot of weapons forwards, and those weapons also have a wide enough arc to shoot at ships at your 4 or 8 o'clock. At the same time, you're presenting a smaller target to shoot at, and from the front a smaller area where you can more tightly concentrate shielding.

second

it's a command ship, and I can see it playing some interesting roles in a full on battle. Putting this at the center of a formation gets you a massive heavily fortified front in which to launch attacks from. this ship with three resurgence could take on any fleet

first

I like the supremacy. It’s all frontal cannon compliment is very efficient, allowing it to wreck anything it faces, it’s weak sides and back are problems, but a good fighter screen and support vessels can easily counter it. The only reason that this ship exists is so a large amount of star destroyers can rally at it. Also, it looks super cool, especially from above with its flying wing shape.

Gonna have to go with the traditional wedge-shape on this one. It's a way more tactically flexible configuration. You have a couple of guns upfront that can target ships there and then a couple in the rear that can target threats from behind and then some in the middle of that line that can engage targets on the sides. The Supremacy is very specialist in that regard and would only work effectively in certain scenarios, while across the board a wedge designed ship is better off. One thing to note is the immense size of the ship and it's wing-span. It may have some guns on the side that can shoot in that direction but considering the length of the wing-span it'd be shooting at itself and unable to target anything that's close to it on the sides. So, apart from that glaring advantage of being able to engage targets head-on, the cons far outweigh it. Even with escort support you're better off with a wedge shape, not only do you get the firepower and coverage from your escorts but also get some extra firepower and coverage from your own ship. Having said that, the Supremacy I actually wouldn't consider for front-line engagements, but rather be a long range support vessel with it's long range turbo-lasers and keep it in the rear as fire support. That way, it can use it's frontal batteries to it's fullest potential within relatively safety. The more closer it gets to a target, the more vulnerable itself gets as it's easier to be flanked and what not. While the smaller, wedge shaped ships do the brunt of the fighting way up front. Added onto the fact it has factories and repairing bays and what not, only reinforces this.

When you tell your friend you disliked one of EckhartsLadder’s videos: Friend: “It’s treason then.”

I feel that the reason so many ships have such spread-out batteries is because they are ideal placements for fighting multiple ships at once. Star Wars ships are efficient as engaging many foes in a single fight and/or providing support fire to other ships that are heavily engaged. Star Destroyers in particular have a spearhead shape that is excellent for thrusting into an enemy formation and giving fire to multiple ships to the fore; all the while any unengaged batteries to the flanks are capable of assisting friendlies stationed in those fields of fire.

Cool topic and video. Great video.

That outro always gets me.

The Supremacy looks like they've turned a Northrop-Grumman B-2 Spirit into an SSD. Aesthetically, it looks pretty damn good. Tactically, you're leaving your flanks, ventral and rear relatively undefended. Concentrating your weapons on one side of anything is a bit daft, but this is a tactical nightmare. A fleet could get round the sides, or go underneath and face little resistance from the Supremacy itself. Also, the Executor did have that wedge shape so it could concentrate the guns on its flanks to blast the hell out of a target in front of it. I just don't see the point in having all your guns on the dorsal bow of your flying wing. As always, great video Eck.

Eck, I thought that you said that the wedge design of star destroyers allows them to focus all of their guns on one target when said target is in front of them, and that broadsides were weaker for any ship with that wedge shape. Sorry if I misheard you if I did.

I think the wider wing like shape is a superior design for the way weapons seem to work in star wars. The weapons farther back on something like the executor will not reach, or be super under powered, by the time they get to their target. Yes the front turbo lasers will be effective but the rear ones will basically be useless.

I came up with a new design for a ship in Star Wars and I hope to one day discuss it with some of you and maybe even you EckhartsLadder

I think that, offensively this ship would be a monster. With 60 kilometers of heavy turbo Lazer groups, even the most incompetent officer in the first order navy should be able to take down a fleet .

Honestly, I didn't really think about the practicality of a ship design like this when it was first revealed. I was just intrigued to see a ship design that changed things up from the traditional wedge-shape we always saw with the Empire and, up until that point, the First Order as well

I find it funny that the supremacy was the only ship to be attacked by a hyperspace ram but also the only ship built to withstand it except for the Death Stars. The executor would get absolutely minced with its wedge shape if hit square on the nose with a hyper space ram, but the supremacy with its flat spread out design would definitely get cut in half but with its multiple power generators it would probably remain repetitively functional unless hit width ways on the wing.

I think that it serves as an effective mobile command center, but its weaponry should be designed for such. It should have a defensive armament more than an offensive one. if it _is_ forced into battle, it can bring out the big guns. More importantly, it should have interdiction technology. In fact, that should just be standard for First order capital ships, but for some reason, they don't seem to use it at all.

I’m glad they made a change to fleet ships, because the Republic, Imperial, and First Order cruise ships look very similar